Mike Young is the former editor of the University Post media at the University of Copenhagen. Since 2016, he has helped scientists and university communicators with the professional use of social media. He has held practical workshops throughout Europe and – via webinar – as far afield as Australia and the US. For the last two years he has worked on the ‘Social Media for Research Impact’ project, which has gathered cases worldwide on how social media can lead to real-world impact for researchers.
Drawing on global case studies from Mike Young’s just-released book Social Media for Research Impact (with Marcel Bogers, Routledge 2026), this highly interactive session will explore the unexpected ways scholars’ social media activity can lead to genuine positive impact. Participants will reflect on how their own institutions can better support these positive impacts — from recognising emergent scientist influencers to creating environments that reward openness, curiosity, and collaboration.
The session will include a simple method to elicit the collective expertise that is in the room. It will be designed to be a structured, multi-voiced conversation.
There are trade-offs in supporting research communication. Trade-offs between visibility and thinking, numbers and conversations, speed and cumulative impact, authority and learning, scalable AI and grounded human presence, as well as branding and kindness. We will explore these tradeoffs, and hopefully inspire each other.